Council Hearing on Parking 2/21/2018 9:30 AM

Parking SOS!  Public hearing on Wed., Feb. 21 -- 9:30 a.m. in Council Chambers, 2nd floor of Seattle City Hall 601 Fifth Avenue (can be viewed live on Seattle Channel 21 or its web site, and later at its archive).  The hearing is about Council Bill 119173 with its many parking-related changes in the Land Use Code, among them to reduce or eliminate the requirement for new buildings to include on-site parking.  

Whether or not you can speak at the hearing, please urgently consider a written comment.  The hearing comments are limited to two minutes, but there are no limits on the length of written comments.  Despite urging from many, this important hearing is not being held in the evening, when more people could attend.  

From the Feb. 21 agenda are these links to the legislation, the official case for the legislation, and some good questions by Councilmember Herbold.  Following is public interest background, and then contact information for the Mayor and City Councilmembers. 

CB 119173

Full Text: CB 119173 v1

Summary and Fiscal Note

Mayor's Letter

Director's Report

Proposed Areas With Parking Flexibility Map (01/03/18)

April 2015 Report to Council (01/03/18)

Letter from SDCI to Councilmember Herbold Regarding Questions

About Parking (Added 01/03/18)

Central Staff Memo (Added 01/17/18)

Presentation (02/07/18)

Central Staff Memo (02/07/18)     

 

Background.   Legislation is before the City Council that would loosen the definition of “frequent transit service” to 18 minute headways (contrary to Metro’s definition of 15 minutes); assume as “frequent” any route even if it is not (by putting it on an approved list that would be updated only once every two years); and satisfy any non-waived parking requirement with off-site spaces up to a quarter mile from the proposed building. A separate section below reprints Livable Phinney’s analysis of the legislation, proposed amendments, and suggested talking points.  For independent background on other parking issues, see the Eastlake Community Council’s parking web page.  

As a result of Livable Phinney’s 2017 administrative appeal, the City’s hearing examiner agreed with evidence (including some from Metro Transit’s own files) that the actual bus performance did not live up to what was on the schedules, and therefore was not “frequent.” But City regulators have not stopped waiving the on-site parking requirement. Now that their own referee has ruled against them, they are trying to move the goalposts with CB 119173.

On-street parking is no frill or luxury. It’s central to neighborhood safety and livability; to business success; and to mobility for children, seniors, the disabled, everyone. Seattle residents heavily use transit and bicycles. But many own, rent, or share a car, and need to park on the street at times, or even regularly. All have visitors or customers who arrive by vehicle and all receive deliveries and services by vehicle. Without on-street parking, our residents could not go about their lives, and our restaurants and other small businesses would suffer or fail. 

Seattle’s Municipal Code long required on-site parking in new office, apartment, and condo buildings. But despite opposition from many groups, recent mayors and the City Council have virtually repealed the on-site parking requirements in new buildings, waiving them near “frequent” bus routes–defined by SMC 23.84A.038 as “headways in at least one direction of 15 minutes or less for at least 12 hours per day, 6 days per week, and transit service headways of 30 minutes or less for at least 18 hours every day.” This poorly drawn law does not even require such service to be in both directions or round the clock.

The effort to waive on-site parking requirements stems from a misplaced effort to discourage car ownership, and it is not working. Contrary to claims that few residents of the new buildings will have cars, many do and are purchasing restricted parking zone (RPZ) stickers, which increasingly exceed the available on-street spaces. The imbalance of excess of parking demand over supply is hampering safety, livability and commerce.

The result of recent changes in law that would be worsened by the proposed legislation is that none of the townhouse, apartment or condo buildings now going up in many neighborhoods have enough on-site parking–and some have none at all. It’s contrary to what City officials now promise in their near-Trumpian passion for an unregulated market. They claim that builders will include in their projects enough on-site parking to meet the public interest. The reality is a “tragedy of the commons,” with on-street parking being sacrificed long term for a profitable free ride now. Having exited with their windfall, developers leave the neighborhood to reap the whirlwind of parking demand that fatally overmatches supply.

Waiving on-site parking requirements on the claim that neighborhoods have “frequent” bus service ignores that Metro buses chronically fall short of demand, sometimes with no seats left once they get here, or entirely skipping stops because of a lack of standing room. There is, of course, no recourse once a project is allowed to be built without parking, based on assumptions that bus service is better than it really is.

Insights on Council Bill 119173 from Livable Phinney.  Following is independent analysis reprinted from the web site of http://livablephinney.org, where one can also donate to the legal expenses of the appeal that exposed the City’s misuse of the “frequent transit” designation.  

Problems with the current proposal:

• Changes persist in connecting parking requirements to proximity to bus stops with “frequent transit,” People living close to frequent transit still have cars and need a safe place to park them even if they take the bus to work.
• Redefines transit headway time to 18 minutes without any justification. Who considers an 18-minute wait for a bus to be “frequent transit” when Metro defines frequent transit as 15 minutes or less?  The proposed changes do nothing to increase the reliability or relieve crowding on Metro buses.
• Using the new 18-minute headway allows expansion of the parking exemption into areas beyond Urban Villages (anywhere within 1/4 mile of ‘so called’ frequent transit).
• Ignores the difference between bus schedules and actual bus arrivals in defining “frequent transit.” This, in effect, ignores the Hearing Examiner’s Decision in the Livable Phinney case which required SDCI to consider the differences between transit scheduled headways and actual headways.
• Imposes new maximum limits on parking spaces in multi-family buildings – in effect eliminating otherwise available parking for tenants.
• Mandates unbundling of parking spaces from rent in multi-family dwellings. This will push more cars onto surrounding streets and increase the cost of rent for current tenants. Lower income renters are most likely to suffer under this rule.
• Removes the parking requirement for affordable housing units (don’t those tenants need or have cars too?)  Most affordable housing is subsidized by local, state and federal sources so Seattle tax payers are already absorbing much of the cost of these developments.

Amendments Needed For Reasonable Parking Requirements

#1. Restore authority under SEPA (environmental policies and code) to mitigate for parking impacts in new development in “frequent transit” areas. Today even when parking impacts are considered “significant” and street parking is already over capacity, SDCI can do nothing to mitigate the problem because the city intentionally reduced its own authority under SEPA.

#2. Institute a new Car-Free-Lease requirement.  Developers who don’t produce enough parking to meet demand should be required to have terms in their leases disallowing tenants from parking cars in overcrowded areas (more than 85% on street parking utilized). In return, these tenants should get a discount on their rent or a transit pass. This will acknowledge that the money developers save by not building parking is shared with tenants not getting parking.  Trickle down at work.

#3. Better definition of frequent transit is needed.  Maintain the 15-minute headway definition and require that compliance is based on recent bus performance, not merely printed schedules or maps generated by SDCI every two years as proposed. The data on transit performance is readily available. Enhance the definition of frequent transit to include crowding conditions.  People will not give up their cars when buses are too often late and very often overcrowded.  Metro produces an annual report on bus performance. That report could be used to determine if frequent transit criteria is met on any bus route at no additional administrative cost to the city or developers.

#4 Make the Decisions on Parking Requirements Data-Driven.  We live in the city of big data – we should use real data on transit performance, parking utilization, capacity and demand by neighborhood and type of development. The city is making decisions blindly or based on a few older studies, or done by self-interested entities.  The King County Right Size Parking Calculator needs to be updated to reflect conditions in Seattle in zero parking buildings.

Livable Phinney’s other suggested talking points (and click here for its Sept. 30 letter to the City Council)

·        Not providing parking does not result in cheaper rents

·        The amount of parking any development provides must be related to the
demand it will generate – not proximity to a bus stop.

·        Overflow parking from an Urban Village into the surrounding
neighborhood, and the ability of that neighborhood to absorb additional
Parked vehicles, needs to be considered. Estimated parking demand over
and above a neighborhood’s capacity should trigger required mitigation.

·        Buildings that do not provide adequate parking for the number of residents
that will predictably have cars should be excluded from receiving Restricted
Parking Zone (RPZ) Permits.

·        A means to enforce a “No Car Lease” can be developed for buildings or
apartments that have units reserved for tenants without vehicles. A “No
Car Lease” is entirely consistent with the city’s rationale that people
without cars “self- select” to live in buildings with no parking on site.

Don’t’ forget to write.  Whatever your views on this legislation, the Mayor and City Council need to hear from you.  Mayor Jenny Durkan accepts comments from the public by e-mail: jenny.durkan@seattle.gov. You can also reach Mayor Durkan by letter at 600 Fourth Avenue, 7th floor, P.O. Box 94749, Seattle, WA 98124-4749, or by fax at 206-684-5360. The Mayor’s reception phone is 206-684-4000, where you can also leave a voice mail afterhours and on weekends. This proposal was developed under former Mayor Ed Murray and was sent to the City Council by acting Mayor Tim Burgess.  

It is best to communicate with the nine City Councilmembers individually, rather than by a group e-mail or letter (which is far less likely to be heeded). The City Council e-mail addresses are as follows: rob.johnson@seattle.gov (if you can send just one, as he is Committee Chair), sally.bagshaw@seattle.gov, teresa.mosqueda@seattle.gov, bruce.harrell@seattle.gov, lisa.herbold@seattle.gov, mike.obrien@seattle.gov, lorena.gonzalez@seattle.gov, debora.juarez@seattle.gov, and kshama.sawant@seattle.gov.  You can also reach the City Councilmembers by a letter (again, preferably one for each, not to all as a group) at 600 Fourth Avenue, 2nd floor, P.O. Box 34025, Seattle, WA 98124-4025, or by fax at 206-684-8587.